


Dr. Scully's Apothecary Shoppe

by EmilyScully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Spooky, Tale as Old as Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 18:36:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyScully/pseuds/EmilyScully
Summary: Little is known about the Scully's, particularly Dr. Dana Katherine Scully who runs the apothecary shoppe in the fictional town of Charbury, north of London. Having been suffocated by the loss of most of her family, the young medic spends her time caring for the small town until Sergeant Mulder, an officer from London, appears on her doorstep, injured and on the run. As Scully's secrets are tried, she realizes this handsome newcomer isn't as innocent as he seems.





	Dr. Scully's Apothecary Shoppe

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, here we go, another fic. I'm just in the spooky mood and have always wanted to write an old timey British AU. I hope you enjoy, all your comments feed my creativity. Thank you for reading!

Little was known about the Scully household, and the little people did know about their newly acquired small apothecary shop on Wenstel Lane was too much, in Mister William Scully’s humblest opinion. The less people knew, he expounded on his wife and children that frigid March afternoon, the better off they were (however, “they” in this sentence was referred to with peculiarity - often with a pause, a quick inhale, a side glance, and a small droplet of sweat along Mister Scully’s graying brow). 

Yes, it was best to remain enigmatic, Misses Margaret Scully agreed without a momentary lapse in judgment. With folded hands neatly placed upon an aproned lap and soft coffee-colored eyes set with an appropriate level of determination for a woman of the time, she awaited her husband’s approval to run the apothecary. The Scully’s had acquired the small shop on the corner of Wenstel and Gifford Lane upon the grim, although Misses Scully would describe it as timely given the hundred year lifespan, passing of Mister Scully’s mother. It had always been an apothecary: whether it was one in practice or not. Misses Scully, however, had always seen potential in it.

“It just needs a little bit of tidying up, is all! Some pots of welcoming flowers out front, an Open sign would help, too,” she would trail on to her husband as she watched the mismanagement his mother gave it.

Regardless of her ambition, though, Misses Scully believed, deeply and honestly, that Mister Scully knew more precisely what was best for their family. Bill and Melissa Scully clung closely to their mother’s stocking, grasping the finely knit garment with tiny hands and obedient eyes, creating an aura around their mother that amplified this regard for Mister Scully. But it was Dana Katherine Scully who, even as a toddler, fixed herself opposite her submissive siblings and agreeable mother and adjacent to her father as if she were his parallel line, forever equal, but never likeminded enough to intersect. Sir Scully ran a rough hand over his stubbled chin, murmured and grumbled to himself, before raising his previously occupied hand and, with a short flick of the wrist, signaled an approval of her managing the shop.

The family, which in practical terms referred to everyone except Mister Scully who was away most of the year with the navy, set to work in the shop soon thereafter. Outside of Misses Scully’s three beautiful children, the Apothecary became her pride and her joy and she devoted every moment to it, so much so that she raised her children within its four shared walls.

It should have been no surprise, then, that at the ripe (although Misses Scully would grimace at this word choice, furrow her brows, and crack her now thinned lips to utter, “perhaps too ripe,”under a raspy breath) age of twenty-four, Dana Scully had grown overly familiar with apothecary. This familiarity earned her a doctoral title among the townspeople in Charbury, Dana’s rather small hometown that lay eighty kilometers outside of rapid-fire London. While “Doctor” Scully relished this recognition, her mother often shook her head with disapproval. 

“Bill is married now, you know,” her mother said, quite often lately, as she entered through the rickety wooden frame to the shop in the morning, knowing her daughter had been there since dawn, “his wife is expecting, as well.”

Scully ran a delicate hand over her ear in an attempt to ignore her mother as she continued to read about the medicinal applications of common forest herbs in Northern Britain.

“I think she is due to have twins, she’s getting so large!” her mother chattered on as she began rearranging the scattered tools on Scully’s work desk behind the counter.

“Mother!” Scully leaped from her seat as she, upon a quick glance that she would not have even paid her mother, heard the clatter of her utensils being reordered. Scully grasped for her tools, placing them back in their seemingly unordered place, “How many times have I asked you not to bother my things?”

Misses Scully drew back as if she had been physically struck by Scully’s abruptness, “Dana, how dare you speak to your mother in that fashion? I have taught you manners better than this.”

“Scully,” Scully replied as she continued to replicate the mess of tools her mother had so rudely attempted to ‘clean.’

“Excuse me?”

“Scully, mother, I’ve told you that I want to be called just Scully,” Scully looked up at her mother, whose eyes were clouded with pain, “not Dana.”Scully shifted her piercing gaze away from her mother to once again focus on her tools.

It was a mixture of Dana Scully’s loyalty, and her equal desire to lose herself in her work when her personal matters suffocated her, that kept the shop alive after the sudden passing of her father and, in rapid succession, mother. Her siblings, both of which had moved away, lost contact with their youngest, most curious, sister and Scully spent most of her nights in that small nook she had grown up in: her nose buried in a book, her thin, round-framed glasses dusty and yellowing from continuous wear. She withdrew from the world and, while most people did not know Dana Scully, they were more than familiar with Dr. Scully. She was the town doctor: often making house visits and being present for most, if not all, town births and deaths. It was no shock, then, to everyone when the Apothecary Shoppe was appended with the preceding“Dr. Scully’s,” - most even wondered why it had not happened sooner. 

Dr. Scully was beloved and respected and so, when a mysterious soldier by the name of Sergeant Mulder rode into town on a brisk October evening, injured and evidently on the run, and asked the blacksmith downtown for the whereabouts of their best doctor, he was, without hesitation, directed to the small nook on Wenstel and Gifford Lane of the name, “Dr. Scully’s Apothecary Shoppe.”


End file.
